Love Itself Comes To Live With Us

There is only one thing as romantic, if not more romantic, than your own wedding, and it is seeing your children happily wed. These, you say, are the fruits; these are the saplings grown from the cones that fell from our branches; these are the blooms in spring and the rainbows after the storm. They are precious. They are delicious. They are exquisite and never so beautiful as now, at this moment…this moment when the whole world worships the most real thing on earth: the love between a man and a woman. Here are photos from that moment; the most recent romance unfolding just this summer. Mona

“Everything else stops, or at least fades into the background, and love itself takes center stage.”

“Suddenly, for what seems the first time in life, one is presented physically and three-dimensionally with an object that is entirely worthy of one’s whole hearted love and devotion.”

“That love should come embodied, encased in flesh, walking and talking and loving in return—for that we are never quite prepared.”

“Of course we are programmed for it, to anticipate and long for love to enter our lives in this dramatic and personal fashion, but that is not to say we are not bowled over when it actually happens.”

“When the miracle of love erupts before our eyes, we cannot help being swept off our feet, dumbfounded, incapacitated for any other action or response except that of love itself: gazing, marveling, contemplating, loving.”

“For secretly we long to perpetuate that one astounding moment in the Garden of Eden. We long to stand in awe of one another, just as Adam and Eve must have done when they first locked gazes.”

“We long for our whole body to tingle with the thrill of knowing that this one fascinating being, this being of a different gender, has been created especially for us and given to us unreservedly for our help, comfort, and joy.”

“Men and women ache for the heart with which to know this reality, and for the eyes with which to see one another (and therefore themselves) as the astounding miracles that they are.”

“For in the first place, love convinces a couple that they are the greatest romance that has ever been, that no two people have ever loved as they do, and that they will sacrifice absolutely anything in order to be together. And then marriage asks them to prove it.”

“A marriage, or a marriage partner, may be compared to a great tree growing right up through the center of one’s living room. It is something that is just there, and it is huge, and everything has been built around it, and wherever one happens to be going—the tree has to be taken into account…It is somehow bigger and stronger than oneself.”

“To be married is not to be taken off the front lines of love but rather to be plunged into the thick of things. It is to be faced, day in and day out, with the necessity of making over and over again, and at deeper and deeper levels, that same terrifyingly momentous and impossible decision that one could never have made without being head over heels in love and out of one’s mind with trust and faith. This is not a resignation to a fate, but the free and spontaneous embracing of a gift, of a challenge, and a destiny.”

“The wedding is merely the beginning of a lifelong process of handing over absolutely everything, and not simply everything that one owns but everything that one is.”

“For when we get married, love itself comes to live with us.”

Related Musings:

Hint of Romance

Reinforce faith in marriage (which must be renewed every single day) by displaying favorite wedding pictures all over the house…

What did you think of this musing?

Discussion

Marriage is the greatest teacher of love. It all starts with fascination and just keeps growing. When we got married, everyone told us our love would only grow if we would nurture it. We didn’t think we could love each other any more than we did on our wedding day because our hearts were so full, but it’s true that your love just multiplies, with every memory, every moment, every encounter, and every person that shares in rejoicing in that love with you. Thanks for celebrating our love with us! We LOVE you!

I love the quote that talks about “this fascinating person.” I love to thrill (and to hear others thrill) and about how fascinating their spouse is. I also loved the quote that talks about how we think that ours is the greatest love that has ever been. So true! :) I want to continue feeling that way forever. (So far we do!) :)

A romantic twist on married bliss…

Musings shares a three-decade-plus romance (if such a thing is possible) which has aged in the way lasting, lovely things do. In this latest chapter, we have just returned to the states after thirteen months abroad and are finally empty-nesters. Follow our trail if you consider yourself a romantic, or would like to be one. START with “Love Makes the World Go Round”.

“Here’s the thing on men—okay, I’m going to give it to you. All men think of themselves as kind of low-level superheroes in their own environment. When men are growing up and they’re reading about Batman, Spiderman, Superman, these aren’t fantasies, these are options. This is the way men really look at their own lives. I’m not even supposed to be telling you this.” ~Jerry Seinfeld